In San Francisco Anne calls her two boys. She orders them groceries in Portland. They won’t eat if she doesn’t.
We drive over the Bay bridge to Oakland. The light house on Alcatraz signals, it wants to waylay my thoughts and feelings.
The Transam Pyramid is owned by a Dutch insurance company. If you want us to protect your assets you need to pay us is what they profess like the mafia.
We see young beset women with thick thighs at Berkely.
Solus went around in a black van in Africa.
Didn’t he kill hisself, I said.
I don’t know about that, said the hefty grey haired sexy book store woman.
Pardon me, Anne said.
Why do you use that word, I said.
People don’t like when I say excuse me, Anne said.
It is how you say it, I said. Don’t say it with that tone.
The Oakland Raiders still play in Oakland at the Colosseum.
My stepfather said that he was worried about me. Why don’t you write me about your activities, he said. He wants me to report to him. He asked me what I was doing and I told him the same old shit I always tell him and he did the same when I asked him what he was doing.
I drink a margarita and eat prawns. I feel nauseous.
Don’t let anyone change you, Anne said.
I can’t tell how bad Anne hurts when she hurts. I don’t know how much of what     she says is distorted. There are two Annes. One that doubts and one that gets shit done.
Anne said she was disturbed after her story that is too personal to relate in this narrative and that she thought that she was going to lose it. I could see that it had made her question herself.
Anne like me has no one to look after her.
We walk in the Tenderloin. A black woman with dead white eyes looks like an African sorcerous.

Black women with thick thighs, cellulite and tight dresses sell themselves
on Geary st. They look down and thumb smart phones.
Addicts and the mentally ill are gone in the morning from the
doorways.
You have to be willing to leave everything you hold dear behind is an attitude
Jane Bowles was familiar with. I would like to leave everything behind for Geary st..
A gallery sells reproductions of Miro Picasso Cassat.
A  woman in her early thirties with round blue eyes walked in a trance on the SanFrancisco streets in black socks.

A is scared that she will lose her mind and disappoint her loved ones.
The three month teacher’s vacation is not enough time for her to lose her mind.
I think about other women when I’m with her and tell her about it.
I can do this because we are friends and I want her to lose it.
For all her griping and fear Anne has never cried in my arms like I did with her.
A skinny black man with white in his beard kicks a transvestite with a big nose in cut off jeans and pink stockings.
We walk oblique city blocks.
You are doing well Anne said. I have been moody.
I hadn’t noticed. It was ironic that Anne said I coped with her depression when I’m by far more depressed, clearly we are both self absorbed.
Where is Sacromento st., said a dude. He looked at me as if he was looking into an empty cafeteria. It angered me that he was poor and physically stronger than me.
He pointed to his leg and said I got you by the leg